Calel Perechodnik

Calel Perechodnik
..
AMIA
MURDERER :~
Testament of a
Jewish Ghetto Policeman
CALEL PERECHODNIK
edited and translated by
Frank Fox
==: WestviewPress
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers
With heartfelt love to Anne
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No pan of this publication may
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photography, recording, or any infonnation storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Copyright e 1996 by Westview Press, Inc., A Division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Published in 1996 in the Vnited States of America by Westview Press, Inc., 5500 Central
Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80301-2877, and in the United Kingdom byWestview Press, 12
Hid's Copse Road, Cumnor Hill, Oxford OX2 9JJ
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Perechodnik, Cale!, 1916-1944.
[Czy ja jestem morder~? English]
Am I a murderer? : testament of a Jewish ghetto policeman I Calel
Perechodnik ; edited and translated by Frank Fox.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-8133-2702-4
l. Perechodnik, Calel, 1916-1944. 2. Holocaust, Jewish
(1939-1945)-Poland-Otwock-Personal narratives. 3. World War,
1939-1945-Collaborationists-Poland-Otwock. 4. Jews- PolandOtwock- Biography. 5. Otwock (Poland )- Biography. I. Fox, Frank,
1923. II. Title.
DS135.P63P467613 1996
940.53' 18'092-dc20
!Bl
95-37124
CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National
Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
Contents
List ofIllustrations vii
Foreword, Frank Fox ix
Preface, Calel Perechodnik xxi
WAR
1
THEAKTION
2s
AFTER THE AKTION
THE CAMP
WARSAW
53
103
133
CONCLUSION
195
The Last Days of Calel Perechodnik 203
Letter to Pesach Perechodnik from Henryk Romanowski 207
Last Will and Testament of Calel Perechodnik 209
Afterword (from the Polish Edition), PawelSzapiro 213
Notes from the Polish Edition 227
About the Book and Editor 255
v
Illustrations
Calel Perechodnik xxiv
Anna Perechodnik, Calel's wife, with their
daughter, Athalie xxv
Galel with Athalie xxvi
Oszer Perechodnik, Galel's father xxvii
Sonia Perechodnik, Galel's mother xxviii
Madyslaw Blazewski, the Magi.ster xxix
House of Oszer Perechodnik xxx
Otwock Jews await execution xxxi
Rail route to Treblinka 49
Proclamations signed by the Otwock mayor 66
vii
Foreword by Frank Fox
Every catastrophe in history is foreshadowed; there are always some
signs in the sky warning people about the danger. Rarely does anyone
believe them.
Sometimes it seems to me that it's a fairy tale-the assertion by the
medical world that the heart is a chamber of delicate membranes
that cannot stand suffering or emotion and that they burst, causing
death. Today, I would advise those who construct fighter planes to
build them out of heart membranes. They will .. . outlast the most
enduring steel.
The greatest skill in this vile world is to be quiet when the heart is
bleeding and the fists tighten.
-Calel Perechodnik
PERECHODNIK, a twenty-seven-year-old ghetto policeman in
Otwock, a town near Warsaw, is witnessing and chronicling not only the
end of a people but also the end of a world. Each morning he wakes to a
recurring nightmare: An enemy possessed of unimagined hatred occupies his native Poland; only those Jews may live who are still needed to
bury others. "In February 1941, seeing that the war was not corning to an
end," and wanting to avoid the labor camps, he joins a force of around
one hundred ghetto policemen. Other policemen deliver quotas of Jews,
but he claims that he does not have a "sporting instinct" for rounding up
fellow Jews and that his only duty is to deliver bread rations to Jewish
officials and their families. Perechodnik hopes the uniform will provide
a shield for himself, his wife, Anna, and their two-year-old daughter,
Athalie. But on the fateful August 19, 1942, Perechodnik and other
policemen help herd eight thousand Otwock Jews into the town square,
where they are loaded into boxcars. The policemen are promised immunity for their own wives and children, but the German enemy deceives
them. Perechodnik watches in horror as his wife and daughter are
loaded into wagons headed for the lfeblinka death camp.
CALEL
ix
x
FOREWORD
There is nothing quite like this in the history of confessions. This is not
Saint Augustine troubled by his own salvation or Jean-Jacques Rousseau
remembering a childhood peccadillo. This is a twentieth-century man
bereft of all beliefs, shorn of all human relationships, who begs to be
understood even as he confounds us. He refers to his memoir as a
"fetus," a second child born to his wife and to him. His style is by turns
mordant and sentimental, accusatory and self-pitying, sardonic and sor• rowful. His mind-numbing purpose is to discover that turn in history's
road that took his wife and child to Treblinka. Contradictions abound.
He expatiates on his father's petty absorption with money even as the
parent struggles to obtain it for the family's survival. He anathematizes
his faith even as he recites the blessings and prayers remembered since
childhood. He blasts the perennial Jewish optimism even as he grasps at
straws to stay alive.
With the death of the Otwock ghetto, Perechodnik and his mother find
a hiding place in Warsaw. Father hides in a nearby village. For the
Perechodnik family, as for a handful of other Jews, the remainder of their
brief lives will be calculated by dividing the value of their few possessions into days left to live.
Who were these Jewish policemen, young men like Perechodnik, dressed
in military-style long coats, leather belts, peaked hats, and high boots and
armed with rubber truncheons? My friend, historian Simon Schochet, a
survivor of a concentration camp who had the "bad fortune" to observe the
Ghetto Police firsthand, described them in a letter to me as follows:
They were young, in good health, well educated and fluent in Polish.
. . . Although treated contemptuously by the Polish intelligencja, they worshipped Western culture and manners and exhibited the worst prejudices
and snobbisms of the educated Polish classes. They showed disdain
towards Orthodox Jews, felt shamed by their dress, manners and behavior,
and blamed them for the ostracism suffered by assimilated Jews such as
they. To the best of my knowledge and memory, I have never been told
about a Jewish policeman of any ghetto who was a Yeshiva student. The
young Orthodox men were not educated in Western fashions, nor were they
sports-minded. Their backs were not straight. They were unfit to wear the
tragi-comical uniforms of the ghetto police.
Schochet's remarks echo what Perechodnik himself writes in his memoir. Finding that "Polishness" has failed to protect his very life, he turns
FOREWORD
xi
with vengeance against the "Jewishness" that stamps him irremediably
as an outsider. Time and again he mentions his own Semitic appearance,
which makes it impossible for him to escape to the Polish side: When he
refers to his father's good "features," he cannot resist a comment on the
old man's accented Polish speech. To highlight his own credentials, he
quotes lines of classical poetry, uses French expressions and Latin
proverbs. As for his beloved wife, she is "not well educated."
Schochet did not find any mitigating factors in the short life of Calel
Perechodnik:
The Jewish policemen ... volunteered for the job and separated themselves
from the Jewish people. They put on a uniform and wore it for years. They
were tools of the killers. The Germans came to Otwock. They brought
Ukrainians with them to destroy the Jewish community. They enlisted the
Jewish policemen to help them in their plan and it was they who blew whistles continuously and led Jews to the waiting trains. Perechodnik was a collaborator in murder. And if he didn't kill people with his own hands, not all
the Germans committed murder with their own hands either. Many just
stood by and watched. . .. The Jewish policemen had all the food, comforts
and women they wanted. Was he guilty of delivering his wife and daughter
to the Germans? Certainly he was. What was the difference between
Perechodnik and the other policemen? They did not confess. They did not
atone. He did.
The Jewish policemen, described in many Holocaust reminiscences as
brutal and rapacious (Warsaw ghetto chronicler Emanuel Ringelblum
described their cruelty as "at times greater than that of the Germans, the
Ukrainians and the Latvians"*) were an instrument of the Jewish
Councils, themselves appointed by the Germans. Both the councils and
their policemen (there was a detachment of women's police in the l6dz
ghetto), in addition to maintaining certain basic services in ghettos,
were used by the Germans in a macabre barter, trading sections of the
Jewish populace-the poor, the very young, the elderly, and the ill-for
the lives of the more useful and, often, the more affluent. The character
of the Jewish police forces, like that of the councils and the ever-
•Quoted in Israel Gutman, ResistatJce: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Boston: Houghton
Miftlin, 1994), p. 143.
"~
xii
FOREWORD
dwindling ghetto communities, varied from place to place, from the
hermetically sealed L6di ghetto, where no resistance was possible, to the
Warsaw ghetto, where Jews fought the Germans and tried to assassinate
the chief of the Jewish police. Itzhak (Antek) Zuckerman, the leader of
the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB), which led the Warsaw Ghetto
uprising, maintained a network of informers among the Ghetto Police,
who at times provided warnings of an impending deportation. His own
escapes were made possible by the actions of Jewish policemen, and he
noted that they too perished. Some committed suicide rather than assist
the Germans. On September 21, 1942, Yorn Kippur, the Germans assembled hundreds of Jewish policemen on the pretext that they would be
awarded medals and shipped them and their families to Treblinka. "I
didn't shed a tear," wrote Zuckerman.*
~
How do we judge Perechodnik's behavior in that age of unprecedented
horror? How do we rank him on the scale of the human depravity that
surrounded him? Was he not a victim, along with millions of other Jews?
Does he not merit some sympathy or at least pity? Whatever we think of
Perechodnik or other ghetto policemen, one cardinal fact cannot be
ignored: Unlike the German invaders, no sadistic ideology, no voluntary
commitment to brutality schooled them for that catastrophic moment
in history. All of them would have lived a relatively normal life had not
the war and the German policy of mass murder altered their existence
beyond anyone's imagination. We may wish that Perechodnik had never
joined the police force. We may wish that he had emulated the saintly Dr.
Janusz Korczak, who insisted on accompanying his children to
Treblinka. Perechodnik himself writes admiringly of a fellow policeman,
Abram Willendorf, who removed his insignia, sat on the ground next to
his wife, and awaited the cattle cars for Treblinka. But all the victims of
the Holocaust were forced to consider choices unimagined in human
experience. They all hoped against hope. And who, having read
Perechodnik's account, could vouch for her or his own behavior under
those circumstances?
~
*ltzhak Zuckerman, Surplus ofMemory: Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), p. 245.
FOREWORD
xiii
We live in an age of victimhood. The aging of Holocaust perpetrators and
victims has blurred distinctions and muted authentic cries. One example will suffice. John Sack in his recent book An Eye for an Eye: The Untold
Story ofJewish Revenge Against the Germans in 1945 emphasizes that his
sympathies were for all the victims. "I had great sympathies for the Jews
... and yes, for the SS men in Poland, who didn't have the antidote of the
Torah and the Talmud, or, in their vicious environment, of the New
Testament. ... A man without mercy isn't a Jew and I am a Jew."*
Rehabilitation of the guilty, impeachment of the innocent, and placement of Jewish policemen such as Perechodnik in the dock with those
who invaded his country confuse cause and effect and serve those who
wish to falsify history. Questions about the conduct of Jewish leaders are
not new. In her 1963 work Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the
Banality of Evil, t Hannah Arendt used her formidable intellect to condemn the behavior of Jewish leaders. The response by scholar Gershom
Scholem to that work is still pertinent. He wrote that among the members some were "swine and others were saints" and that "there were
among them also many people in no way different from ourselves, who
were compelled to make terrible decisions in circumstances that we
cannot even begin to reproduce or reconstruct. I do not know whether
they were right or wrong. Nor do I presume to judge. I was not there.''t
Calls for purer and braver victims have not ceased, testifying perhaps
to the uneasy conscience of the living. In a paper presented in Warsaw in
1993 on the fiftieth anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, Lucjan
Dobroszycki emphasized that the question was h~t why the Jews did not
fight back, but how any resistance at all was possil>le:-"Has anyone seen
an army without arms," he wrote, "an army scattered over 200 isolated
ghettos, an army of infants, old people, the sick, an army whose soldiers
are denied the right even to surrender?"§
•John Sack, An Eye for an Eye: The Untold Story ofJewish Reuenge Against the Germans in
1945 (New York: Basic Books, 1993), pp. 171-172.
1Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Viking
Press, 1965)..
'Quoted in Hannah Arendt, The Jew as Pariah: Jewish Identity and Politics in the Modern
Age (New York: Grove Press, 1978), p. 243.
•Lucjan Dobroszycki. ~Polish Historiography on the Annihilation of the Jews of Poland in
World War II: A Critical Evaluation,• East European Jewish Affairs 23, no. 2 (1993) :47.
xiv
FOREWORD
Perechodnik's memoir illustrates all too graphically the German strategy
of humiliating Jews and leaves little doubt that it was a rehearsal for
murder. His desperate cry reminds us that European Jews were abandoned by nations near and far and, most painfully, by other Jews. This
was not lost on Adolf Hitler and his followers. When Perechodnik writes
that Polish Jews faced only two options on the eve of World War II-total
assimilation or emigration to Palestine-he expresses in extremis the
hopeless situation of the Jewish masses in Europe.
A novel such as Aharon Appelfeld's Badenheim, 1939, * which suggests
that the signs of impending doom were plain to see, is, unintentionally
to be sure, another example of holding the victims responsible. This has
been called "backshadowing," a term used by writer Michael Andre
Bernstein in his book Foregone Conclusions: Against Apocalyptic History, t
in which he criticized the argument that the Jews of Europe should have
known what was coming and not succumbed to slaughter. Such questions, of course, could only be asked after the fact. In the words of the
Magister to Perechodnik: "Why are you Jews so passive? Why don't you
do something?" Perechodnik does not bother to answer. He is simply
surprised that such a question is asked. By that time the cataclysmic
metal-gray wave had already swept over Jewish life in Europe. Indeed,
that wave started to rise much e.arlier, but none could (or perhaps dared)
imagine its depth.
Perechodnik loves the country he is unable to defend. Early on in his
memoir he writes that he "knew Polish poetry better and liked it better
than an educated Pole." He quotes from the Polish classics of Adam
Mickiewicz, Juliusz Slowacki, and Jan Kochanowski. It is a terrible disillusionment to him that he has been denied his Polishness. In the debate
on the arithmetic of suffering that resurfaced at the fiftieth anniversary
of the liberation of Auschwitz, we might imagine Perechodnik using his
*Aharon Appelfeld, Bodenheim, 1939 (Boston: David R. Godine, 1980).
'Michael Andre Bernstein, Foregone Conclusions: Against Apocalyptic History (Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994).
FOREWORD
Xll
characteristic irony to say that the counting of 3 million Jewish dead as
Polish would honor them with a status they did not always enjoy when
alive.
1\vo Polish poets of that period, Julian Tuwim, who survived the war
abroad, and Wladyslaw Szlengel, who perished in Warsaw, expressed a
very similar pain. Tuwim, whose skills in the Polish idiom were
unmatched by any poet of his generation, wrote at war's end We, Polish
Jews, and while noting the painful instances of anti-Semitism, proudly
proclaimed his Polishness, a right as natural as breathing. "I am a Pole,"
he wrote, "because the birch and the willow are closer to me than the
palm and the citrus, and Mickiewicz and Chopin dearer than
Shakespeare and Beethoven."* Szlengel, who recited his poetry in a
Warsaw ghetto cabaret, contrasts in his poem "1\vo Deaths" the death of
a Pole killed by a bullet "for the Motherland" and that of a Jew, a "foolish
death" in a garret or a cellar. In another poem, ''A Page from the Diary of
an Aktion," he proudly compares the sacrificial death of Janusz Korczak
to the Polish heroic defense of Westerplatte. 1
It is difficult to imagine how Perechodnik compiled such a record in the
midst of the hell he inhabited. Even with his self-absorption, we sense a
growing power as a writer, and the gallery of portraits that he leaves
makes us wish that he had told us more, particularly about members of
his family. Perechodnik knew that the Germans would destroy his work
as surely as they were destroying Jewish life, and he was determined that
it would survive him. He gave his memoir for safekeeping to his friend,
the Magister. After the war, the latter's wife handed it over to
Perechodnik's older brother, Pesach, who spent the war years in Russia.
He in turn presented the original to the Yad Vashem Archives in
Jerusalem; a copy was also deposited at the Jewish Historical Institute in
Warsaw. It is not surprising that the memoir remained unpublished until
recently. Perechodnik's condemnation of Jewish leaders and institutions,
his expression of helpless fury in the face of betrayals by Polish neighbors, his blood-chilling cry of vengeance against the German peoplethese raise more alarm than interest.
•Julian Tuwim, We, Polish Jews (My Zydzi Polscy} (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1984}, 28.
'Wladyslaw Szlengel, Co Czytalem Umarlym (What I Read to the Dead}, 2d ed. (Warsaw:
State Publishing House, 1979), 105-106.
xvi
FOREWORD
Comments in the Polish press, both at home and abroad since the
book appeared in 1993, have confirmed this. In December 1993, a review
of the book by journalist Michal Cichy in the respected Gazeta J.fyborcza,
started an avalanche of criticism and commentary that continued for
several months. Cichy referred to Perechodnik as a "witness, victim and
collaborator in the Holocaust" and described the memoir as a "primer of
the most terrible truths, a book that the less 'stomach' one has for it, the
more one should read it."* But Cichy's research, which indicated that
units of the Polish underground killed ghetto survivors as they emerged
from hiding during the Warsaw uprising, outraged many, and he was
accused of besmirching the coming fiftieth anniversary of that revolt.
More recently, Gustav Herling-Grudzinski, a prominent Polish author
residing in Naples, wrote in Kultura, a Polish-language magazine in
Paris, that Perechodnik helped load his wife and beloved daughter into a
cattle car in order to gain a "moment" of life for himself. "Is he a murderer?" the author asked rhetorically. "Not a murderer, but a zealous
assistant to murder. If he could have understood that there was something worse than death, he would have gone to Treblinka with his wife
and daughter."' As for Perechodnik's relatives, colleagues, and acquaintances, Herling-Grudzinski condemned them for having "torn asunder
the chains that linked them with other people," For them, all that
remained of life was "vegetating and peddling." They were "soulless,
cruel and empty."
Pawel Szapiro edited the Polish version of Am I a Murderer? and
stated in his Afterword that Perechodnik "took part to a significant
degree in its {the Holocaust's) implementation" and that he was a "collaborator in the crime." To say that Perechodnik was a collaborator in
extermination, a tormentor, or a perpetrator is a judgment we should
hesitate to make. Most of the Jewish policemen were eventually killed,
though not because of their deeds. They were killed because they were
Jews.
For those who wonder how to distinguish between Perechodnik and his
evil masters, a passage in the memoir is worth pondering. Perechodnik
'
•Michal Cichy, "Wspomnienia Umartego" (A Memoir of the Dead), Gazeta W)'borc.za
(Electoral Gazetteer), December 15, 1993, p. 4.
'Gustav Herling-Grudzinski, "Dziennik Pisany Noql" (Diary Written at Night), Kultura
(Culture), no. 12/567 (1994):26-27.
FOREWORD
xvii
writes that he will never be able to return to a normal life. He will not be
able to remain as either Jew or Catholic, an honest man or a thief. He will
be a nobody. He is haunted by what he has done and by what he has
seen. He is full of remorse. We do not have a record of such contrition
among perpetrators. After committing unspeakable atrocities, many of
them settled down in their hometowns as policemen, judges, businessmen, or physicians. They accepted no blame and expressed no shame.
Szapiro chose the quote "Am I a murderer?" from Perechodnik's guiltridden work as a title for the memoir. (Perechodnik's own title in the
manuscript at Yad Vashem is "A History of a Jewish Family During
German Occupation.") The readers of this memoir may find Szapiro's
title more appropriate as a description of Perechodnik's delirium than as
a truthful depiction of his brief life. Perhaps the final word belongs to
Primo Levi. He wrote that he did not wish to dwell on the notion that
there was an "identification or imitation, or exchange of roles between
the oppressor and the victim." He insisted that "to confuse them [the
murderers) with their victims is a moral disease ... a precious service
rendered (intentionally or not} to the negators of truth." He concluded,
"I do not know, and it does not interest me to know whether in my
depths there lurks a murderer, but I do know that I was guiltless and that
I am not a murderer."* These words would not have relieved
Perechodnik's troubled conscience, but they should enable us to make a
distinction between the cruel who choose to kill and the weak who wish
to live.
We know more about Perechodnik's last hours from a letter written by
Genia, a young woman who shared a hiding place with him, to his brother
and just recently made available to me by Szapiro. (The letter is reproduced in this volume.) Genia wrote that Calel Perechodnik and his friend
Sewek joined the Home Army (AK}, the underground Polish army, but
that Calel, struck down with typhus, was soon discharged. As Genia
described his last moments, he took off his father's shoes and handed
these as well as two shirts and a coat to her. He had only enough strength
to kill himself. All of them carried cyanide pills, and she was sure that he
took poison when his hiding place was discovered. Surely his friends
would have wished him a speedy death.
•Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved (New York: Summit Books, 1988), pp. 48-49.
xviii
FOREWORD
Perechodnik perished a year after the death of the poet of the Warsaw
ghetto, Wladyslaw Szlengel. The two were almost the same age. Llving in
their hermetically sealed ghettos, they could not have been aware of
each other's existence, though each had to be aware of his ultimate fate.
Szlengel's poem fut, Czas ["It Is Time"] is proof that Perechodnik's
description of the ''bath" that awaited his wife and daughter at the
Treblinka death camp was a fact known to others. They may also have
shared an ineffable and terrifying vision of God as helpless as they, and
condemned to death, as in the following:
-Now You won't escape Your end!
For when we bring You to this place ofslaughter
A hundred dollar gold piece of the rounded sun
Will not help You bribe the keeper of the "bath."
And when the torturer whips You, bullies You,
Rounds You up and rams You into the steaming chamber
And shuts You with the airtightness ofages
So that the hot steam chokes You, chokes You,
You will scream and try to runAnd when the agonies ofsuffering end,
They'll drag You and throw You down a monstrous hole,
And tear out Your stars- the jaw's golden teethSet You on fire,
And You will be ash.
-Translated by R Fox
Acknowledgments
A number of friends and colleagues have helped generously in bringing
out the English-language edition of Calel Perechodnik's memoir. Chief
among these is Dr. Simon Schochet, whose unwavering support, intimate knowledge of the period, and sensitivity to nuances of language
were of immeasurable help. Dr. Lucjan Dobroszycki, one of the foremost
historians of Jewish life in Poland, used his good offices to obtain an
agreement with the editor of the Polish edition, Dr. Pawel Szapiro, and
the editors of the journal Karta, in whose pages I first read an excerpt of
FOREWORD
xix
the memoir. Dr. Szapiro has also provided me with rare Perechodnik
family photographs.
I am most grateful to Michael Hershon. who gave me expert advice on
German wartime military terms and did so promptly from distant
Australia. My son Julian spent many hours patiently assisting in the
ongoing struggle with word processing. I wish to thank friends Dr. Jan
Zaleski, Professor Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Jerzy R. Krz}'Zanowski, and Peter
Obst and my editorial helpers, Susan McEachern, Jess Lionheart, Shena
L. Redmond, and Jon Brooks, for their help and encouragement.
Needless to say, any errors in translation are my own.
Preface by Calel Perechodnik
IT 1s MAY 7, 1943. I am Calel Perechodnik, an engineer of agronomy, a
Jew of average intelligence, and I shall try to describe my family's history
during the German occupation. This is not a literary work; I have neither
the ability nor the ambition to attempt one. It is not a history of Polish
Jewry. It is a memoir of a Jew and his family.
To be exact, this is a confession about my lifetime, a sincere and true
confession. Alas, I don't believe in divine absolution, and as far as others
are concerned, only my wife could-although she shouldn't-absolve
me. However, she is no longer among the living. She was killed as a result
of German barbarity,* and, to a considerable extent, on account of my
recklessness. Please consider this memoir to be my deathbed confession.
I harbor no illusions. I know that sooner or later I will share the fate of
all the Jews of Poland. A day will come when they will take me into a
field, command me to dig a grave-for me alone-order me to remove
my clothing and lie there on the bottom, and kill me quickly with a pistol
shot to my head. The earth will be made even, and a farmer will plough
it and sow rye or wheat. I have seen so many executions that I can just
close my eyes and see my own death in detail.
I don't ask to be absolved. If I believed in God, in heaven or hell, in
some reward or punishment after death, I wouldn't have written this at
all. It would be enough for me to know that all Germans will roast in hell
after they die. Regrettably, I don't know how to pray, and as for faith, I
have none!
That's why I ask the whole democratic world-Englishmen, Americans, Russians, Jews of Palestine-to avenge our women a nd children
burned alive in Treblinkas. 1 We Jewish men are not worthy of being
avenged! We were killed through our fault and not on a field of glory.
My life may be considered fairly typical. I cannot claim to have an outstanding intellect or some accidental good fortune to make me stand
out among others. Oh no! All the silly mistakes, all the errors committed
by the Jews, I committed as well. All the misfortunes, all the tragedies
that affected them, touched me in the same measure.
•Perechodnik uses the word vandalism, which is much stronger in Polish than in English.
xxi
xxii
PREFACE
This, then, is a history of one among many, one of millions of miserable people who were born-against their will and to their ultimate disaster-as Jews.
I was born in Warsaw, September 8, 1916, into a family of average
Jews, a relatively well-to-do, so-called middle-class family. These were
honest people, possessed of a strong family instinct, characterized on
the part of the children by affection and attachment to their parents,
and on the part of the parents by a sacrificial devotion to the material
well-being of the children. I emphasize "material" because there were
no spiritual bonds that tied me or my siblings to our parents. They did
not try, or perhaps were not able, to understand us. To put it briefly, each
of us was raised on his own: influenced by schooling, friends, books we
read; conscious of our own material independence; and living in an atmosphere of free expression and thought in the years 1925-1935.2
My brother and I belonged to Bejtar,3 a Zionist organization that propagated the idea of creating an independent Jewish state in Palestine.
This did not interfere at all with my feelings as a good patriotic Pole. I
adored Polish poetry, particularly that dating to the loss of independence-and especially of Mickiewicz. It really spoke to my heart because I connected it with the history of the Israelites. I assumed that
Poles, so long oppressed by their enemies, would understand Jews, have
compassion for us, and help in whatever way they could.
Even though I was not particularly religious, I believed then in God
and in the historical mission of the Jewish people, the mission of spreading culture among the nations of the world. I was equally proud of
Spinoza, Einstein, and other Jewish men of genius.
I did not pay too much attention to the problem of anti-Semitism. !
believed quite deeply that anti-Semitism would automatically disappear
with the progress of civilization and mankind's cultural achievements
and that humanity's development would approach ever closer the immortal ideas of the French Revolution: liberty, equality, and fraternity.
Besides, I want it clearly understood that I personally did not come in
contact with anti-Semitism. It's true that I could not study at Warsaw
University, but because of that, I had an opportunity to go to France for
graduate studies in agronomy.4
The period that I spent in Toulouse belongs to one of the most enjoyable experiences in my life. Such liberty, such respect for other people,
sbch freedom to express one's convictions-all this was perhaps not
possible in any other country.
PREFACE
xxiii
In an atmosphere of freedom, among people of such an outlook, it
was all the more amazing to read press reports about all sorts of antiSemitic brawls at Wai:saw University.s I didn't want to believe, and indeed could not imagine, that you could approach someone you knew, or
someone you did not know, and give him a black eye or manhandle
someone just because he happened to be born a Jew.
After I completed my studies with the result tres bien, avec felicitations
du]ury, 6 I wrote a thesis on the cultivation of hemp in Poland, a work of
which no native Pole would have felt ashamed.
Before my final departure from France I visited the World's Fair in
Paris and returned to Poland as a twenty-one-year-old, with an engineer's diploma. Although I still had a year's deferment for military service, a week after my return I presented myself before the board.• I was
placed in category A,t but because Poland was such a mighty power,
possessed of such a strong military and of so many educated and commissioned engineers-officers, I was obviously superfluous! Anywaywhy beat about the bush?-they gave me a supernumerary status. They
did it with me, my brother (also an engineer), and all of our Jewish
friends who had a high school education or higher. They just did not
want to have Jewish officers in the Polish army.7
I will admit frankly, this did not worry me too much. After all, I just
wanted to fulfill loyally my obligations toward my country, one that provided me with the means to make a livelihood, protected my rights, and
whose welfare was close to my heart. It goes without saying that no Pole
will believe me, but people, please understand what I am saying! I saw
my own well-being in the well-being of Poland.
What to do? I have to account for my attachment to Poland on a materialistic and selfish basis. Ifl wished to claim that I was sincerely and disinterestedly attached to Poland, that I knew Polish poetry better and
liked it better than an educated Pole, that the Polish language was my
mother tongue, one in which I first revealed to my beloved how I felt
about her-no one would believe such words, and so I would rather not
dwell on them.
In August 1938 I married Anna Nusfeld, a young girl who was completely dedicated to me and one whom I had loved for six years. My wife,
"This was the equivalent of the draft board in the United States.
teategory A meant he was eligible to serve, but not as an officer.
xx iv
Calel Perechodnik, who died at 27
..
:uv
Anna Nusfeld Perechodnik, Calel's wife, with their daughter; Athalie
Cale! wlthAtlUilie
•
xxvii
Oszer Perechodnik, Ca/el~ father, who died at age 55
xxviii
PREFACE
Sonia G6ralska Perechodnik, Calel's mother; who died at age 57
although not well educated, was a wise and outstandingly intelligent
woman. Already before our marriage she was the co-owner of the Oasis
movie house in Otwock. She was an orphan. Her parents died when she
was still a child. She and her siblings were raised by an old grandmother.
l'\ctually, they raised themselves.
Later on, as still-young people, they built by themselves a beautiful
movie house on a lot they had inherited from their grandfather. I can say
PREFACE
xxix
Wladyslaw Blaiewski, the Magister
with complete certainty that after twenty years of anguish and inhuman
toil, they established themselves. They wanted to build another movie
house in Otwock, but the mayor would not permit it. He'd rather there
was no movie house in Otwock than for a Jew to be an owner of one. But
never mind that.
Because I did not want to live on my wife's income, I opened a warehouse of building materials with my uncle G6ralski. This business fully
supported me and my wife. The income from the movie house was used
for old mortgage debts, for fancy furniture in our home, and for our
clothes. Altogether, at the age of twenty-two, I wasn't rich, but I was a
very happy person. I had a loving wife, my work; I was settled and did
not have to depend on anyone to support me.
One could ask why I did not go to Palestine. After all, as a Zionist I
should have done that! I did not leave on account of my wife. She had
suffered for twenty years, at times from cold and hunger. Her brothers
had built the movie house with their own hands; she and her sister had
carried bricks and mixed lime. God! How they had worked until the
movie house had begun to prosper. Now, when they reached their goal,
were settled, my wife did not have the strength or energy to throw all this
away and start afresh in another country.
The house of Oszer Perechodnik in Otwock, formerly 10 Ko5cielna Street,
now renamed Sikorski, 18
..
PREFACE
xxxi
Otwock Jews before execution by the Nazis
I did not take notice that the ground was on fire under our feet in
Poland. I thought that I had a right to stay in Poland since I fulfilled all
the obligations of citizen toward her. My wife and I decided that we
would go to Palestine only after a certain period of time, that we would
buy some land there, and that I would then work in my own profession,
that of an agronomist.
24
WAR
.
me to procure for her a Kennkarte. She could not understand my indifference to the threat of a deportation. She repeated to me often that she
could imagine what her brother went through the night before he was
shot and that she wanted to save herself. I silently shrugged off her
words, didn't even want to hear them, because they irritated me. It is
possible that if I had had some ready hard currency, I could have
arranged it-just to be left in peace. But first of all it was necessary to sell
a suit, my English coat-that upset me. Besides, believing in all "assurances," I did not have a foreboding of danger.
T~e /lktion ~
Saturday, August 15
I LEFT MY HOUSE before dinner. I lived on the outskirts of the ghetto,
near the crossing barrier on Wawerska Street. Quite by chance, I met
there a Polish acquaintance, the Magister,s1 talking to another Jew.
I must write a few words about this Magister. We met in November
1940 in Otwock, where he was (and still is) a civil servant.88 I would visit
him once a month, at times more frequently, and we talked mainly
about politics. Once I invited him to the ghetto for potato pancakes.
Another time he received me somewhat coolly, and I assumed he had
personal problems. I don't remember whether this was in July or August
1941, but suffice it to say that I ceased visiting him after that.
I don't know what opinion he had of me. In any case, I considered him
a person of engaging manners-honorable, honest, fiercely patrioticin a word, a man on whom one can depend in an hour of need, one who
can be counted on to help readily and selflessly. Since I knew him briefly,
I had no evidence to prove all this, but I just felt it intuitively.
If I didn't fear insulting him, I would have told him that even though
he was a native Pole, I sensed in him all the good aspects of Jewish character. That would probably be taken as proof of my Jewish chauvinism,
something that in our times is seen as the greatest insult.
But let us return to our meeting. I greeted the Magister very cordially,
and he joked a little about my elegant appearance, which seemed to
have no connection with the war or the ghetto. Then, abandoning the
lighthearted tone, he asked me seriously, "Why are you Jews so passive?
Why don't you do something?"
This really surprised me because as far as I was concerned, there was
nothing that could be done. We parted quickly.
Right after that I met my wife, Anka, walking with our child. I told her
that I had met the Magister, and I asked her whether we shouldn't invite
him to us to take some of our things for safekeeping. Anka basically
agreed but wanted to delay it until Monday. I returned quickly to the
crossing barrier, where the Magister had remained, and asked him to return the following Monday at five. He agreed right away and asked at the
same time that I telephone him before that.
A trivial and meaningless condition, but how tragic would be its consequences.
25
26
THE AKTION
Sunday, August 16
A day for washing and housecleaning. Our laundress washed everything,
my wife cleaned in all the corners and changed the linen, while I took
care of our child.
Monday, August 17
The mood worsened quickly in Otwock. A few influential and well-to-do
Jews from the brushmakers' guild returned to the Warsaw ghetto.
Apparently the Aktion was at an end there,89 and now it would be
Otwock's turn.
I returned home very upset. Our child was asleep. When I inadvertently awoke it, my wife yelled at me, and I replied sharply. In a word, we
argued. I heard many unpleasant things. These wou!d be prophetic
statements, although I don't think that Anka knew how close she was to
the truth. She said, What advantages had she derived from me? Of what
use was it to her that I earned a livelihood and acquired so many useless
things? She could sell these and we could live better; that she knows that
when she is deported, she will leave it all behind; finally, that I did not
procure for her a Kennkarte and that I generally did not protect her.
Hearing these words, I was, to be honest, indignant. I left the house in
a fury and naturally did not telephone the Magister.
I can still hear Anka's prophetic words. They pound in my brain day
and night and reach me like loud voices from another world.
You are guilty. You have caused our destruction! You are guilty....
And maybe Anka, who loved me sincerely and was such a good wife,
has forgiven me, perhaps prayed that I be allowed to live so that I, who
alone remembers her, can honor her memory and erect a memorial stone
for her. But can one be redeemed by a monument? Is it possible to be redeemed altogether for such sins? Ifl live, it is only so that the punishment
will be greater and that before my death I will do penance for my deeds.
It is true that we Jews who are still alive envy those Jews who died in
the first bombings, who died from typhus, who died earlier from whatever cause. At least they did not suffer. Somewhere it is written that there
will come a time when the living will envy the dead.
~
Tuesday, August 18
It is a beautiful, sunny day. The town is quiet, when suddenly panic
breaks out at one in the afternoon. Women are running and crying, try-
THEAKTION
27
ing to hide little children. I go quickly to the police station, where nearly
all the policemen have assembled. I try to find out what has happened.
It seems that a Major Brand has arrived at Otwock, apparently the commandant of an Umsiedlungsbatallion,oo and demanded to see the plan of
the ghetto. Afterward, quite illegally in the opinion of the naive Jews, heappointed the commandant of the Ghetto Police, Kronenberg, to be as well
the president of the Judenrat. Until this time, the Jewish Council was exclusively under the authority of the Kreishauptmann.91 Brand also ordered
that they demolish in twenty-four hours all brick houses in order to use the
materials for a wall around the ghetto. Finally, he looked over a place set
aside for a carpentry shop, gathered up the plans, and left the ghetto.
After this visit, the mood in town became extremely dejected. It was
true that no one took seriously the order for walling up the town since it
was impossible to fulfill. Nonetheless, everyone knew that deportations
would take place. Only no one knew when and how it would be done.
Everyone drew different conclusions from the new situation. For me it
was essential what the commandant of the Ghetto Polizei thought about
it. Kronenberg, already the previous week, had received a letter from a former deputy of the Jewish police commandant in Otwock, one Rykner.92
I must explain what happened to him earlier. Rykner, because of certain infractions, was sent out in January 1942 with two hundred others
to the punishment camp Treblinka I. About fifteen .first-rank craftsmen
from this group there remained alive. They worked and lived fairly well
to such an extent that in May Rykner was able to come to Otwock, naturally with an SS man escorting him. He did not wish to discuss what was
going on there, greeted his wife, and went away again. A couple of
months later he came again, in a truck, took his wife and the children of
those craftsmen to Kos6w, a little town situated nearTreblinka.93
This same Rykner wrote in the letter he sent to Kronenberg that the
Jews of Otwock should be protected from the danger that threatened
them. A couple of days later, on Friday, August 14, Rykner, uncertain if
his letter had arrived, phoned Kronenberg. The pretext was the order for
nails from Otwock for the Treblinka camp. When Kronenberg confirmed
the arrival of the letter, this exchange followed.
"Do you know then what you must do?"
"I know!"
The human thinking process is inscrutable. Rykner wanted to warn
the inhabitants so they could escape in time. Kronenberg, on the other
hand, considered it to be in his interest that there should be no panic in
town because ollty he would be held responsible for a mass escape.
mt•s11111......._________
28
THE AKTION
I also don't know if Brand told Kronenberg that the deportations
would take place the following day. I do know that Kronenberg knew
about it because he conveyed this information to the policeman he was
friendly with. He told his barber to come to him the following day at six
in the morning, and he awaited him calmly. And he ordered the policemen to tell their wives to come to the workshops at the same time and
stand by their tubs to show the Germans that they were ready for work.
This was only for show because the laundry was not yet set up.
The officials of the Judenrat housed themselves and their families in
the building that served as their headquarters. The tailors went to their
tailoring workshops, that is to say, to the space that was set aside for that
purpose. Sewing machines were there, but there was no work because
the Germans had not yet sent the material. Nobody gave it a thought.
Brushmakers went to look over the brushmaking equipment while
awaiting the transport of horsehair. The carpenters walked aimlessly
around the planing machine, waiting for the arrival of the boards. The
masses, as masses do, were probably waiting for a miracle.
It's interesting that every catastrophe in history is foreshadowed; there
are always some signs in the sky warning people about the danger.
Rarely does anyone believe them.
That's how it was with Otwock. Director Dilrr of the Arbeitsamt, leaving for summer vacation, said that when he returned, there would be no
Jews in Otwock. Frank, the German inspector in the Karczew camp, also
drew the veil aside. He had already informed certain workers in May that
they alone with their families would remain in Otwock. He ordered that
the families be registered and that he be shown the list that was drawn
up. No one took these words seriously, but now, in the face of danger, the
families of those workers felt secure. Their names were furnished to
none other than inspector Frank, the authentic relative of the governor
general,* and he, on his own, guaranteed them immunity.
Nonetheless, on that sunny day of August 18, everyone sensed deportations. Very few knew the precise time-they kept it a secret-but I can
say boldly that 75 percent of the Jews guessed it. Still they slept calmly.
certain that it would not affect them.94 The remaining 25 percent of
Otwock's Jews either left the town at night, hid themselves in the cellars,
or awaited the course of events resignedly.
°The infamous Hans Frank was the governor general of the Generalgouvemement.
THEAKTION
29
Hail to you, 0 German genius. Only you could so daze the people,
bring them to such a state of collective stupor, that they huddled like
lambs, awaiting their executioners. They did not even hide, but on the
contrary, they gathered in flocks so that the executioners would not have
to work too hard. There is one more interesting symptom of the general
stupefaction. All of them were so certain they would remain that they
prepared well-stuffed knapsacks for themselves.
I am no longer capable of answering the question of what we thought
about as we packed. The knapsacks were a bit too heavy to escape with
to other ghettos. Anyway, anybody could tell along the way that a Jew
was fleeing. Maybe these knapsacks were packed so that in the worst of
situations they could take them along to the wagons. We must not forget
that 90 percent of the Jews had no idea where they were going. But I
don't believe in this explanation. I have another idea, absurd on the surface, but now a year after these events, I believe it strongly. The packing
of the knapsacks served only the Germans. Everyone took the best
things, into which they sewed their entire fortune. Gold, dollars, and
banknotes. These knapksacks went straightaway to Treblinka where the
Germans did not even have to separate things. After all, only the choicest articles were brought. As for those who left their knapsacks at home,
they saved their executioners the trouble of packing them. This was a
real theater of marionettes, but what a tragic theater! Nevertheless, the
manner in which the Germans implied to all the Jews, without exception, that they were doing all this for themselves, for their own good, for
securing their material well-being for the future, this will remain forever
Satan's secret.
Let us return to that Tuesday, August 18. After returning from the police station, I telephoned the Magister right away and arranged to see
him at five, at the same spot, at the border barrier. The Magister appeared punctually, and we went to my apartment. There, together with
my wife, we reported to him on the situation. We told him that probably
nothing threatened us. Nevertheless, we wanted his help in placing our
daughter in a suitable household. I told him that I wanted to pay in advance for what would be the cost of raising the child for a year, which I
estimated to be twenty-five thousand zloty worth of goods. I assumed
that this was enough because even if something happened to me, the
war would be over in a year.
The Magister wanted to give me an answer in a few days, but I insisted
that he come the next day. In my naivete I told him that we had to hurry.
We gave him for safekeeping a suitcase with our things. He was to keep it
-
&&.
30
~
THE AKTION
in his family's apartment in Warsaw, where he resided. 95 In addition to
that, I offered him my silver pencil, and for his sister, whom I did not
know, a bottle of Chanel cologne. I would have gladly given him more
expensive presents, but I knew that I could have offended him with that.
I remember as if it were right now the moment I gave him the suitcase
through the fencing enclosing the ghetto. The Magister fastened it to the
bike's baggage rack and drove off. When I saw his back as he drove off, I
had a foreboding, a presentiment. I wanted to call him back. What for? I
didn't know. Did I want to give him another suitcase? Was it to ask him to
take my daughter with him? Even if he could not find a place for her, we
could take her back in a couple of days. I felt a strong pain momentarily
and an unexplainable anxiety. In the meantime the Magister's figure became more and more distant, and soon I lost sight of him.
When I returned home, my wife and I started to pack our knapsacks.
Then I went to town to take care of our usual daily chores with my friend
Willendorf. I remember we took the flour from the electric mill, brought
it to the baker so that he would bake us bread for the next day.
What did my wife do during my absence? This I found out from an acquaintance, a policeman, only a month later. She herself did not tell me.
It seems Anka went to a photographer to have a photo made for her
Polish Kennkarte. She wanted it ready for Wednesday morning.
Today I know that in Otwock there was a group of several score Polish
citizens who that day knew exactly what would happen the following
morning. Because around five o'clock in the evening a written telephone
message arrived at the Polish police station,96 asking that they reserve
fifty freight cars for seven in the evening on Wednesday, August 19. It was
also ordered that at seven that morning there be a roll call of uniformed
and criminal police to take part in the Aktion to deport Jews.
The news about the ordered freight wagons did not circulate in town.
But Jews did find out that there would be a roll call of the police. Polish
policemen calmed them, saying that it was a regular weekly roll call.
They themselves took advantage of this information, if only to remove
from Jewish tailors or shoemakers items that were ordered, whether
they were finished or not.
In other towns policemen felt that it was their obligation to inform the
local Jews about the impending deportation. The Otwock police did not
consider it their obligation and did nothing. For three years of occupation they sucked Jewish blood, collected constantly a bribe from butch·
ers, bakers, smugglers, from every Jew who traded or who had any goods
hidden since before the war.
THEAKTION
31
Let us not forget that all ofJewish life during the war was illegal. A policeman could pick on anything. What do you live on? Where do the
potatoes in the ghetto come from? Where did you get the bread? Where
are the fields planted with rye? And if there are, where did you get the
seed for sowing? Where did you get the meat? Throughout the war Polish
policemen, who officially did not have the right to be in the ghetto, lived
off that ghetto and lived well.
I don't reproach them for this. I understand that on their wages they
could not live during times of devaluation. Still, it will always be to their
shame that they did not render Jews that last service, that they did not warn
them about deportation. I accuse them, and hold that they are, in equal
measure with the German henchmen, responsible for the deaths of Jews.
Yes, there were a few instances when the policemen warned close
friends of expected deportations. They made them promise, however,
on their word of honor, that they would not reveal this any further. I
. know, for example, that Officer Pietras warned the administration of the
hospital Zofi6wka. Thanks to that several people were saved; some others, not having the means or the energy to save themselves, committed
suicide that same night.97
Just the same, for the sake of justice, I must exclude from the ranks of
the police the commandant of the Otwock Komisariat, Marchlewicz.98 I
cannot accuse him of living off the ghetto during the war. He probably
never crossed that boundary, not before the Aktion and not afterward. I
am absolutely certain that in his home you will not find any Jewish possessions. He personally never detained a Jew and probably sympathized
with them. I cannot approve the basis for his action according to some
noble rule of splendid isolation. Would that all the police at least followed his example, but he too should have fulfilled his obligation, certainly a moral one, to warn the Jews. That he did not do.
All this we only learned sometime later.
The night came, a sleepless night for all the inhabitants, without exception, in the ghetto. People walked the streets in circles, not being able
to decide what to do. Rumors flew that the Polish police had already surrounded the ghetto and had arrested several hundred people in their attempt to get away. These people were to be executed the next morning.
Tales fly from mouth to mouth, acquiring more and more fantastic
character; people turn like ghosts in the warm August night. Only the
bakers, with a kind of atavistic strength, a strength instilled through custom since childhood, are baking as if nothing threatened them. They are
preparing for the town black and white bread and rolls for children.
llli±•&!lllll..........______
32
THEAKTION
Four o'clock at night, seeing a lot of movement in town, we woke our
child and with my aunt, Czerna G6ralska, and her nine year-old son,
Mulik, we went to our parents' home. They lived near the police station.
Naturally, we did not forget to take with us the knapsacks, so that we
barely made it there. We did not find our parents in. They ran away during the night to the Polish neighborhood. Only my sister, Rachel, the
wife of the policeman Janek Freund, was at home. Anka right away undressed our child since the baby still had to sleep. We didn't even think
that there wouldn't be time to dress her again.
Wednesday, August 19
At dawn the people begin to wander out en masse; all are crowding
around the police station of the Ghetto Polizei, the Judenrat, the laundry, and the workshops. Satan looks on all this, surveys the living marionettes, and laughs as he has never laughed before. He sees how the
"smart" Jews are unwittingly helping the Germans, how they are saving
them work.
I go into town to get some information and also to collect the daily
quantity of rationed bread. lt is seven in the morning-I am actually at
the bazaar-when a truck full of Ukrainians drives through the Karczew
border barrier.99 The first shots are fired. I run quickly home, and just
then, from Warsaw Street, come in tum a heavy truck and, following it, a
limousine of SS officers. Shots are heard from all sides; the ghetto is already surrounded.
The first victim is Dr. Gliksmanova, who lives near the Warsaw crossing point. A pleasant, good-looking mother of two children. She went
out on the street with the intention of showing the Ukrainian her certificate, that she was a dentist for the general population and for the Jewish
police in particular. As she held out her certificate with a pleasant smile,
she was shot in the head and fell lifeless.
0 lucky woman! You died at the moment when you least expected it,
unaware that together with you were sentenced to death your beautiful
small children.
The Germans had very little work to do. First they went to the Jewish
police station. There they directed the assembled crowd to form ranks.
They said that everyone was going to the square, where they would be
segregated. The families of policemen were to be freed. At this time, the
policemen ran as if possessed, not knowing what they had to do-they
blew whistles with all their strength and without pause. Everybody
feared for himself and for his family.
THE AKTION
33
The Ukrainians fire and fire again. There are no shots into the air.
Every shot·is aimed at someone's head from a distance of no more than
two meters. People fall, brains spatter, blood flows. Crazed, the Jews do
not understand why the Germans are shooting because they are not hiding, are ready to stand in rows, everyone has his paper and certificate in
his pocket that he is not subject to deportation. The engineer Rotblit, the
originator and founder of the workshops in Otwock and a personal
friend of the Kreishauptmann, approaches the officers. With a proud
smile he hands over his papers. The officer accepts them with one hand
and with his other one shoots him in the head. Engineer Rotblit falls.
And the German, instead of looking over the papers of his victim, would
rather look through the pockets, take his money, and remove the gold
crowns from his teeth.
In the meantime there forms at the police station a group of wives of
all the policemen, their children, and their close and distant relations.
Only one woman in all of Otwock has not lost her head. That is Tola, the
wife of the commandant of the Ghetto Polizei, Kronenberg. She tells her
mother-in-law to stand in line, and she seats herself as the telephone
operator in the police station. Earlier, her husband gave Major Brand
two gold watches-she remains in place. Others have not even noticed
that she is not in line.
At this time I run home as quickly as possible. My wife is beside herself, agitated, and is dressing our child. She herself is dressed in two
dresses, a skirt, a blazer, a jacket, and a coat. She wants to hide in the cellar. I am overwhelmed by a terrible fear. There could be severe consequences for the child if they were to find my wife in the cellar. Then they
would not consider that she was the wife of a policeman, and they would
kill her, the baby, and others who had already hidden in the cellar. What
to do? Oh God!
Beside myself, I return to the police station. I run to Kronenberg and
tell him that my wife has hidden in the cellar and that I don't know what
to do. The commandant of the Ghetto Polizei knows what to do.
"Bring her to the square with the child; on my responsibility, she will
be released."
I run as if I had wings. I don't pay attention to bullets, which are
whistling all around me, and I jump into the apartment. Thank God,
Anka is still in the room, but in what a moment! She is halfway in the cellar. On the floor I can see only her head and arms.
"Anka," I scream, "Kronenberg has said to go to the square. Nothing
Will hann you. You will be freed."
"And where is your sister?"
--........__________
34
..
THE AKTION
"Rachel is in the police station," I reply, "with the group of policemen's
wives."
Anka leaves the cellar. We close the opening so that her aunt Czema
and her son, Mulik, or others who have hidden there will not be found. I
talce my child by the hand, and I lead my wife.
We join a group of policemen's wives. We are surprised that this
group is not a homogeneous one and has grown with the addition of
others. We are happy that there will be a proper selection in the square.
Anka and the child stand in line, and I am moving alongside. From the
side of the Judenrat comes a huge serpentine line of people, officials,
with the president at the head, and their families. All are marching quietly because they know that they are going to be released soon. In line
is the finest pulmonary surgeon in Otwock and in the entire area, the
chief doctor of the ghetto, Dr. Augarten. He wants to approach the officers of the SS and to prove his identity. After all, it is not for nothing
that he was for so many years a medical practitioner in Hanover. The
officer only wags a finger. It may mean that he knows all this, but in the
meantime the doctor must stand with others in line; he will be released in the square.
In the meantime the Ukrainians have surrounded the laundry,100
where women of the professional class and their children have assembled. They are standing at the washtubs and hold rags in their hands.
Think of this: rags that will one day be made into clothes for Germans.
And, indeed, a Ukrainian with a rifle watches so that no unauthorized
person enters the laundry. Work, ladies; stay calm.
At this moment the secretary of the Ghetto Polizei, Ehrlich,101 comes
running with his wife and wants to place her in the laundry. The
Ukrainian bars the way, threatens him with the rifle, does not let the wife
go into the laundry. Ehrlich, despairing, returns to his nearby apartment
and in the last minute hides his wife in the cellar. If he had known that
the wives of the policemen are not threatened, he would probably have
brought her to the square. It all had to do with the fact that Ukrainians
did not let him through to the police station, and he thus did not know
what was going on.
Suddenly the Ukrainians who are surrounding the laundry command
that the rags be set aside, that all form ranks and march to the square.
People change into automatons, dumbfounded marionettes-and even
motionless because all at once someone is killed. No one can think. The
whistles of the Jewish policemen, the shots of the Ukrainians, the
corpses of familiar people underfoot. Helmeted German officers, with
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silvery shields* on their chests, resemble some demigods, in contrast
with the destitute, humble crowd of Jews, with baggage on their shoulders, small children in hand, and a terrible fear in their hearts.
The Ukrainians are chasing the people from all the streets. Although
everyone obeys and marches in even rows, shots ring out constantly.
The Ukrainians are shooting most readily at young people, at beautiful
girls. If they meet the old, the crippled, the paralyzed-they leave them
"in peace." I saw a young woman whose legs were paralyzed. With tears
in her face she was asking for a bullet-in vain. The family had to drag
her from the end of town to the square, and from there she went to the
wagon. I also saw a young woman, a minute earlier bubbling ove; with
life and health-I saw her in the moment a Ukrainian with a shovel
quartered her living flesh. He had no more bullets, grabbed a shovel by
the handle, and struck at the living flesh between her breasts until he
just cut her in half.
Everyone is marching toward the square in the direction of the carpenters' shop, which they fenced in with barbed wire with their own
hands. Everyone is told to sit down. The square is large. It will hold them
all. Ach, you are here. The whole town is here. Take note of the news that
all of you will be sent out. No one will be released; the policemen will
also go. They are already guarding us; the scales fall from our eyes. From
the general population of twelve thousand inhabitants of the ghetto
there are eight thousand sitting in the square. The overwhelming majority of these came on their own. They have betrayed us all.
My wife looks at me with a mute expression. I shall never forget that
look. Finally she asks, "Calek, did they find Czerna in our cellar?"
Oh, if I had the strength to lie, to say that, yes, they found our aunt in
the cellar and killed her on the spot.
Silently I deny with a motion of the head.
"Calek, where is Kronenberg's wife? Didn't he tell you to bring me to
the square?"
I am silent. What can I say?
"Calek, and those who have hidden themselves, they will live. Is that
true?"
"No, no, no," I answer.
"These shields were worn by the German traffic police, a unit called Verkehr-NSS. This
stood for National-Sozialistische Kraftfahrer Korps, a paramilitary formation that oversaw
the training of motorized and armored units.
-........__________
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Do I know? Am I able in my state to understand anything at this moment? There is a buzzing in my head, as if a waterfall were running
through it. I don't understand anything that is going on. I have lost the
ability to think and act.
The Germans know that is not safe for them if people have nothing to
do and perhaps are thinking. They order us policemen to supply water
from the public fountain for the whole crowd. I walk like an automaton,
hear voices that I don't understand. Ach, that's right; someone is offering
me money so that I can bring him water more quickly. Foolish man,
what good is the money to me now?
The sun scorches more and more. My daughter did not eat anything
today, and it is time fot her second nap. She sleeps in the woods always
at this time. Daughter, daughter, today is the end of your second year.
Ach, if I knew, I would have, two years ago, strangled you with my own
hands. Daughter, because of you your mother perishes, and maybe you
will perish because of the foolishness of your parents. Who can possibly
understand what is the cause and what is the effect? In the meantime,
my dearest daughter, you are looking at me through the barbed wire
with such serious eyes. You're not crying, not making any grimaces. In
one hour you have grown up; you have become an old woman.
Apparently you know that you have been condemned, some instinct
tells you that. You stretch out your hands to me, but I have no right to
take you. If I do that, I will immediately get a bullet in my head. WeJI, so
what if I get it? Ach, that fear, the panicky fear of slaves!
The Germans, in the meantime, bring themselves chairs; they sit
around, drink beer, smoke cigarettes, eat, and laugh. From time to time
they fire into the crowd so that no one will dare get up.102 To further
frighten all, they pull out a few people from the crowd and beat them
with clubs until they die.
Jews look on this, and-0 wonder-still don't understand the terror of
the situation. Some remind others about money owed them. A lady
friend asks me to go to her room for money that she left on the table.
Another acquaintance asks me if I would give him twenty zloty for the
road because he has no money with him. Cursed money! Will people always think that it will save them from all misfortunes?
What do they all want from me when I don't know and don't under" stand what is going on around me? There remains with me only the
knowledge that I have brought my wife and daughter to their deaths.
From the rows of people comes out a Jewess by the name of
Kamieniecka. She walks up boldly to the officers and shows them a
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Polish Kennkarte. She receives a few blows, but they free her. She is followed by thousands of eyes, and she shortly disappears into the Polish
neighborhood. She is saved.
But Anka is not looking at her. She is looking at me; she says nothing,
doesn't even reproach me for not getting her a Kennkarte. God in heaven!
Am I guilty? I turn away, am silent. What can I say? Explain myself or ask
for forgiveness? Can one really say anything in the face of death?
Only the German Satan is enraged because a Jewish woman has cheated
the Germans and has saved herself. Now maybe it is possible to seek another satisfaction. A young, comely, elegantly dressed woman approaches
from the Polish neighborhood. We ourselves don't know if she is Po!ish or
Jewish. The German officers ask her politely what she wishes. In reply they
hear that she is Jewish and wants to go with her mother, who is in the
square. They are surprised and ask her several times, "Polen oderJude?"103
For the longest time they cannot understand. When they finally realize
what this is all about, they don't even bow their heads before such a sacrifice. She is beaten with clubs and pushed into the line.
Throughout this time the policemen were certain that they would also
be deported. They were not allowed through on the side of the
Komisariat, but they could circulate freely in town. Some tried to hide,
but the majority did not consider escape.
Together with Willendorf I went into the town to find a little food for
our children, who had not eaten anything that day. We went round and
round without speaking to each other. Even though I knew that I could
now hide myself to avoid being deported, I did not consider this. How
could I? There Anka waits for some food for Aluska, and I will hide myself
and not bring it? To remain alone and to allow them to go away seemed
to me so absurd that I did not take this into account for a moment.
We finally found some tomatoes and candy and then returned to the
square. We also took along a few small pillows* for the children to take
along to the wagons. This activity drained our energies. We were completely resigned, incapable of any act, thought, and even speech.
It is noon. Lipszer, the head of the gendarmes in the Warsaw region, is
arriving. Following him is the inspector of the Karczew camp, Frank, together with the commandant of the Arbeitsamt, Durr. They stand and
confer. All the policemen must present themselves at the square in front
'These pillows were placed on larger ones as decoration.
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of the police station, and there they will hear about their fate and the
fate of their families. Hearing this, the wives entertain the best of hopes.
We leave them calmer, and we station ourselves in two rows before the
police station.
Llpszer addresses us. His voice falls on us slowly, harshly. The German
pronounces each word with care. Is he a man or God? No one is certain
of that. Then he stops, walks up to our rows, and with a raised voice
turns to one of the policemen: "Bist du ein polizist, di hunt einer umleigum?"•104
The sons of old Szwajcer gave him an old police armband in the
square, and in this way they took him out of the crowd of the condemned. Now, before their eyes, their father is shot down. They look as
he falls right under their feet, they don't stir, they stand at attention.
Llpszer is checking another suspicious one in line. And in point of fact
someone managed to grab an old police armband. He has no hat, no
number, but he has an authentic identity card signed by the Germans;
once he was a policeman. His heart beats like a church bell. If Lipszer
looks at the number on the armband and compares it with the number
on the identity card ... He does not look.
To the question of whether anyone else intends to deceive the
Germans, there emerges from the ranks the town councillor,1os (Motel)
Solnicki. On his arm he has, instead of the police armband, an armband
of the Judenrat-too bad, he must die. But no. There is only a short "Du
blajbst."106
Lipszer returns to the verandah, and his words again flow slowly. God,
what is he saying?
"You policemen will remain in Otwock. You will clean up the whole
ghetto. You will take to the warehouse all possessions, merchandise, and
furniture, and you will hold the people who are hiding under arrest until
the gendarmes arrive. You are not permitted to take anything, no goods,
no money. When you remove the curtains, don't tear them. It is not permitted to damage furniture; gold and dollars you must give to me personally. When the entire ghetto is cleaned up, you will be sent out to the
labor camp in Karczew, where you will work for the remainder of the
war. You will be released after the war. If your wives were here, I would
°The German quotations with their misspellings (there are others in the memoir) shoW
that Perechodnik's knowledge of both German and Yiddish was limited.
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free them, but if they are already in the square, they must go away. Five
wives who have remained have the official right to remain."
God, is he mocking us, joking, or laughing at us? First he tells us to provide our wives to the square, and then he tells us that if they are with us,
they will remain? My brother-in-law Janek Freund is standing and weeping. Menez, hist du ein mencz?1°1 I say to myself. Oh, great God, here we
are, one hundred men, men for men, and before us are a few gendarmes
with rifles. Boys! Let's attack them; we'll die together-I think to myself.
But nothing comes of it, and now Kronenberg speaks up. He did not give
up Ws wife, only told me and others to provide theirs. What is he saying?
"Mir danken Herr Leutnant.''1 08
Boys, say it together, everybody loudly.
Lipszer wags Ws hand as if to reject the thanks and probably laughs to
Wmself. He knows perfectly well that when the time comes, he will "do
Ws work like a Negro slave."* Here everyone is condemned to death. But
we don't know that. What won't a Jew do to live an hour longer? Some of
the policemen are happy; they just happened to live quite far from the
police station, and their wives were able to hide themselves. Bachelors
are happy for obvious reasons. And those who are losing their wives?
Who is thinking of others, anyway?
There is one person who is thinking. That's my friend Willendorf. He
wants to demonstratively give up his policeman's armband, give thanks
for Ws life, and perish together with his wife and son. Kronenberg will
not allow such a gesture. He says that if he wants to, he can join his wife,
but without any display that can harm the other policemen.
Right after this, a group of policemen is dismissed to the hospital
Zofiowka in order to bury the corpses of the Jews who were killed.100 My
brother-in-law Janek Freund also goes with them, while I am able to escape from this group. I return to the square. Anka is sitting there waiting
to be released. What can I tell her? What can I do?
When I get to her place, her stretched-out, pleading hands seem to cry
to me, Calek, Calek, are we free? The child also looks at me, with arms instinctively held out. I am quiet; the policeman Abram Willendorf now
makes clear the situation with his behavior. He says nothing to his wife;
silently removes and throws aside his armband, hat, and number; and
calmly sits on the ground.110 We are going away together, such is the
silent artswer ofWillendorf, an honorable man.
'This is pan of a saying that a slave will perform his task but is expendable.
- ..........________
40
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Abram Willendorf, what can I now tell about you? For a year we were
inseparable friends. We always went out together, you, a Communist,111
I, a Zionist. You have saved the honor of the Jews of Otwock, the honor of
the policemen. You have sweetened the last moments of your wife's life.
And I, I, the intellectual, what did I do? Did I throw away my armband?
No, I did not have the courage.
I could say that my wife asked me not to do this, that I should stay
alive and remember her from time to time. If I write this, it is only to
show what a noble and sacrificing person Anka was. I know well that
even without such a request, I would not have had the courage to volunteer for death. The example of the crowd took hold of me completely. I
thought as did the others: Let it be one day later, even under force, even
with shame. I couldn't do it a day earlier, by myself, voluntarily, with
pride.
One hour passes, another one. The Jews are apathetic, they no longer
think-and about what should they think?
Anka, my wife, what were you thinking then? Maybe that near you
sits your sister with her children? Maybe that not one of your family will
remain alive? And maybe you are looking at your daughter, such a
beautiful angel, and you remind yourself with what pain you bore her
and with what difficulties and self-denial you raised her? What was she
guilty of? Are you perhaps trying to penetrate, to understand these
Germans, to wonder why not one of them approaches, takes Alu5ka by
the hand in order to play with her? There was never a person who did
not stop by her in the street in order to look at the little one. And maybe
you are thinking of the movie house that you built with your own
hands. Are you perhaps thinking how tall and beautiful is the grass in
front of your villa? How pleasant the day under the pines that you did
not let me cut? How quiet and safe it is there? How nice it would be to
stretch out there, to sleep as you did for so many years in the sunny
days of August?
And maybe you are tooking at the Polish policeman who is guarding
you with a rifle in hand. He came to the movies for so many years, aJ.
ways kissed your hand through the glass opening of the cashier's booth,
paid you compliments, told you how beautiful you were with the lamp
shining on you, in the flush of youth-and now he is ready to shoot you
if you get up. And maybe you are looking at the Poles who are riding by
in crowded electrical trams, looking at the Jews of Otwock for the last
time. Some are probably very pleased and are joking, seeing how polite
the Jews appear to be in the square, really like a flock of lambs; others
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41
lower their heads quietly or make a sign of the holy cross, whispering,
"Requiescant in pace."* Indeed, they already see corpses in front of them.
Maybe you are thinking that if I remain alive, I will live for a long
time, will marry and forget about you. And maybe you have a hope
that in the last moment they will free you. It is beyond your comprehension that I could take you and cram you into a cattle car. Perhaps
you are praying. And maybe you have collapsed from shock. Maybe
you recall the good times in the casinos, walks in Zakopane. You remember your young life and the life of your daughter, and you want to
live, live, live.
What did you think about, Aneczka? Throughout our married life I
knew your thoughts, but on the last day you did not say anything, did
not respond to me at all.
Eventually, I hear her voice.
"Calek, try to get poison for me and the child."
My sister, Rachel, the wife of Janek Freund, is asking me for the same
tlrlng. Where can I get poison? I am like a robot who can carry out a command but does not know what is going on around him. Finally, I go to
the police station to telephone the Podolski pharmacy. How different my
words sound over the telephone.
"This is Perechodnik speaking. I would like poison for three people,
and please send it to the fenced-in area near the Komisariat."
Are these my words or the words of some other person? And why
should they send it? It's true that I am about two hundred meters from
the pharmacy, but I can't get there. I wait. The pharmacy has not sent it.
A Pole on a bicycle loiters near the fence. He agrees to go to the pharmacy, returns shortly, and says that they will not give it to him without a
prescription. A prescription? Where can I find a doctor? I know. Dr.
Maksymylian Augarten is in the square. So many times he saved people
from death; let him once prescribe a medicine for death. I return to th.e
square.
"Doctor, please let me have a prescription for poison."
Augarten takes out his fountain pen, notebook, writes in Latin, signs
it, dates it August 19, 1942, and puts down the same ready formula: for
Perechodnik. I take the note through the barbed wire and leave without
a word. It's not necessary to pay now for making up a prescription.
'"May they rest in peace" (Latin).
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I return to the fence, throw the prescription to the waiting Pole. He returns after several minutes, throws me ten tablets of Luminol, and
doesn't ask for money. Was it some stranger who has paid for me, or is it
that the pharmacy would not accept money?
I am once again in the square. What effect does Luminol have? How
much should one take? Whom can one ask? Someone says that three
tablets are enough to cause death. My sister, Rachel, does not hesitate.
She takes three tablets, dissolves them in water and drinks it with one
breath. She does not say good-bye to anyone and only gives me a few little trinkets for her husband. The brave girl falls asleep quickly. I walk
away.
My wife prepares for herself the fatal potion, wants to drink it without
even saying good-bye to me. In the last minute her sister spills the liquid
on the ground. Apparently she believes that they will survive even where
they're going.
What were you thinking, my sister-in-law? Were you satisfied that you
did not let your husband continue being a policeman and that he would
perish because of you? He could have saved himself.
And what were you thinking about, you engineer Skotnicka? You,
grand dame, you are smiling, your lips whisper, "Non omnis moriar."
You're right; you succeeded already in wartime in sending your children
to Palestine. Your son is probably fighting in the ranks of the English
army-there is someone to avenge you. Your daughter has already completed the Technium in Haifa. God willing, she will marry, will have children who will be named after you. The Germans will not exterminate
your family branch.
Of what were you thinking, Frau Schtissler, you a pedigreed
Volksdeutsch? Forty years have passed since you joined your lot with
that of a Jew. You surrounded him with real love and loyalty and shared
with him the good and the bad. To follow him, you left your native
Germany, during the war you lived with him in the Otwock ghetto, and
now, voluntarily .. . What did you think about? Do you perhaps regret
your sacrifice? Are you proud of your great love, which commands you
to accompany your husband up to ... Treblinka? Comfort your husband
with kind words, you who are filled with shame that you are descended
from the nation of barbarians.
Of what were you thinking, Miss Zylber? Already yesterday you had
the opportunity to go to Lublin, to friends. You could have saved yourself. After all, every Pole should have considered himself lucky if you
would marry him, you good-looking, rich, honorable girl. Maybe you
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43
can repeat after Lilla Weneda that you never knew the joy oflife until you
had to die. u2
And what were you thinking about, you officials of the Judenrat? You
were ready to do everything for the Germans, but they had contempt for
you. It didn't even concern you that they did not refer to you as
]udenratem but as Judenferatem-a traitor to Jewish affairs. That's true;
you're sorry that you did not remain policemen.
And of what were you thinking, you rabbis, Jewish sages? Were you
proud at that moment that you belonged to the Chosen People, that you
were falling as sacrifices in the holy name of God?
And what were you thinking about, you wealthy Jews? Did you at that
moment examine if the gold was well sewn into the suit? You were certain that it would save you even now.
And what were you thinking about, tailors, shoemakers, Jewish workers? Yes, yes, Gedalewicz, you must take with you a German uniform; you
will show them there how nicely you can sew uniforms. Who will harm
you? Be as workers with the best of intentions. They will not send you out.
And what were you thinking, you children of Centos?ll3 A little boy
said to me that it was shameful to send out orphans.
And what were you thinking about, you Jewish masses? You were passive, resigned, silent. Jews thought about everything, but not that they
are descendants of Judah Maccabee.114 Where is your spirit that would
have sounded with a thundering voice, "Let me perish, but together with
my enemies!"
Before you are scarcely two hundred men with rifles, and you are eight
thousand and have nothing to lose. Stand up, all of you together, shout
one cry, and you will be free in a second. The Jewish nation is cursed, it is
old, it has no strength to fight its opponents.
I return to my wife; I give her four fresh pills.
The train wagons arrive. God, render a miracle! We turn to the
Germans and beg them practically on our knees to have pity on our
wives. The German Satan jeers at us some more.
"Good, they will be freed," they say to us solemnly.
On wings of happiness I run to my wife.
"Anka, Anka!" I yell. "You are saved!"
We take our wives and children out of the crowd. These are scenes out
of Dante. Our mothers and sisters must go to their deaths seeing that
their daughters and daughters-in-law remain alive. The policemenbachelors pick out their fiancees or sisters-mothers give them their
own rings to make it easier for them to marry.
•
LL
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Willendorf, Willendorf, what did you do? Now the wives of the policemen are being saved along with their husbands. and you have to go with
your wife and son to the wagons only because you showed contempt for
your armband. Unfortunately, now you cannot be saved.
Rachel, Rachel, why did you have to hurry so? Ach, you sacrificial sisters, nurses from Zofi6wka! You want to save Rachel, give her an injection. You know that you too will perish, and in spite of that your hand
will not tremble at the last injection. But where do you find milk for the
injection on this cursed day? But you don't give up; you make a different
injection. The dose of Luminol was. as it proved, insufficient. Rachel is
awake and is placed between the wives of the policemen. Hardly conscious, she holds in her hand her husband's police identification.
An1ca, Anka, will a poet be found to write of the nobility of your soul?
Just a while back the specter of death appeared before your eyes. and
now with dawn's light barely illuminating freedom, you are ready for further sacrifices and devotions. You ask me in a pleading tone, "Calek, let's
take my sister's daughter, we'll list her as our daughter. Let her be saved
with us; we'll take care of her."
You're asking in vain, begging in vain. Indeed, love is blind since you,
noble one, have loved me, one unworthy of you. Oh, I know-I could
have explained to you that I refused that because I sensed that with two
children, they would certainly not let you go. No, I will not say that. Why
should I deceive my own conscience? On that day reason did not guide
us but a blind instinct that revealed to us the real human face, the nobility of some, the vileness of others.
At last a group of policemen's wives is assembled on the side. They tell
us to load the remaining people into cattle cars. 0 cursed Germans! How
wise you are! How quickly we become the obedient marionettes in your
hands! We work briskly; the demon of revolt no longer dominates us, not
even a feeling of pity for the remaining Jews.
"Be/go, Be/go."* shout the Ukrainians. "There are not enough train
wagons. Load two hundred people to each car."
The policemen lead their own fathers and mothers to the cattle cars;
themselves close the door with a bolt-just as if they were nailing the
*There is no such word in Ukrainian. It is possible that Perechodnik is using a word similar
to the Polish belkot, which connotes "babble" or "gibberish." Or the Ukrainians may be
shouting Bij jego, which in Polish means "Hit him."
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45
coffins with their own hands. One policeman hands his father poison,
and seeing this, his brother, a handsome sixteen-year-old, shouts and
weeps, "Zygmunt, Zygmunt, and for me?"
The tempo of work grows wild. The temples throb; there is an unbearable pain in the heart and a single thought that we will soon take our
wives and children away and run from this accursed place.
It is dusk; all are loaded up. The Germans are going to the wives of the
policemen and are starting to separate them-children will not be released.
"Calek, Calek, what am I to do?"
"Zygmunt, what am I to do?"
"Mojsze, what am I to do?"
Beside myself, I grab Aluska, blood of my blood, bone of my bone, and
I place her to the side. She stands alone, hungry, sleepy, surprised.
Maybe she does not understand why the father, always so good to her,
leaves her in the dark. She stands and does not cry; only her eyes shine,
those eyes, those big eyes.
Suddenly we see that the Germans are pointing their guns at us. A
command is heard.
'M policemen to the side of the square on the double march! In two
lines!"
It seems to us that we are standing in one place, but no, our legs, in
spite of our will, carry us to the other side of the square.
The German Satan reveals his true features. Now there is no longer
any point in playing the comedy. For one hundred people the Germans
are willing to fatigue themselves and do their own loading into the train
wagons.us Our dear ones are going away into the dark night without
farewells. From the distance I see only a cloud of dust and silhouettes
that I cannot distinguish. All has been lost. Hurry now, policemen-you
executioners of your own wives and brothers-render them their last
turn; give them some bread through the windows of the wagons. Let no
one say that the Germans begrudge Jews some bread.
A long whistle-Anka, you have started off on your last journey. God,
have mercy on me!
Allow me, Anka, at least in my thoughts, to accompany you farther. For
ten long years we were together. When I went away for my studies, I sent
to you right away the necessary documents so that you could also come
..........________
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to me. You had a passport, but they didn't want to give you a visa. Alas!
Maybe we could now be together in France. Qui le sait?*
You are in the fourth cattle car from the locomotive, a car that is almost completely filled with women and children. In the whole car there
are only two men-are these your protectors? You are sitting on the
boards with your legs tucked under you, holding Aluska in your arms. Is
the child sleeping already at such a late hour? Is it maybe suffocating for
lack of air on such a sultry August night? Has human excrement so poisoned the air that one cannot light a match?
You are sitting alone in the midst of this crowd of condemned. Are you
maybe finding some comfort that this fate has not only touched you but
also all those around you? No, you are not thinking of that. You are sitting, and there is one thing that you do not understand. How is it possible? Your Calinka, who loved you for ten years, was loyal to you, guessed
at and fulfilled all your thoughts and wishes so willingly, now has betrayed you, allowed you to enter the cattle car and has himself remained
behind.
Maybe he already went home, went to sleep on clean bedding, which
you have just changed the other day, and you sit here with Aluska in your
arms, in the dark, in the crowd, without air.
I know you clench your fists, and a wave of hatred toward Aluska
sweeps over you. That is, after all, his child. Why do I have to have her
here? You are getting up; you want to throw the little one out the window.
Anka, Anka, do it, throw out the child, and don't let your hand shake!
Maybe the child will fall under the wheels of the speeding wagon, which
will crush her to a pulp. And maybe, if there is really a God in the world,
there are good angels who will spread an invisible carpet so that nothing
will happen to her. Maybe your Aluska will fall softly to the ground, will
fall asleep far from the train rails, and in the morning some decent
Christian, captivated with her angelic looks, will pick her off the ground,
cuddle her, take her home, and raise as his own daughter.
Do it, Anka, do; don't hesitate for a second!
Unfortunately, you fall to the floor again, hug Aluska to you, beg her to
forgive you for such thoughts, for that wave of hatred toward her and her
father that swept over you. Your body is shaken with a quiet, bereaved
weeping. May it bring you forgetfulness!
•"Who knows?n (French).
THEAKTION
47
You have just passed by Swider, J6sef6w,11G and suddenly you see
movement at the window. These are your two protectors, the only men
in the wagon; they have decided to escape. The weeping of the women,
who are afraid to remain alone, does not help. Nor do the words of
Solnicka.
"Why are you running away? You can get killed. When we arrive, we
will work and live on."
No, these men cannot listen to these women who are strangers to
them. They have to save themselves; they want to live to see their own
wives and children. Jurek jumps first and after him, Berek Kejzman.
Anka, Anka, why don't you follow them? Once you played football with
a boy's team, in Otwock you were the best biker, and now you are incapable of doing this? Is the baby holding you back or hatred toward me?
Are you thinking, Am I supposed to jump, run away? But where will I go?
Am I supposed to return to Calek?
For ten years, since you met me, I took the place, for you, the orphan,
of father, mother, and brother. I cared for you. You didn't do anything by
yourself without my knowledge and help-now you're not able to decide
by yourself. You go on sitting, cuddling the child, and you envy Kejzman.
His wife saved herself earlier; now he will see her, and they will go on living together.
Yes, there is no prophet who might appear before you, who will be
able to tell you the future history of Kejzman and also of other Jews.
Today I know their history. Not long ago I envied him. Envied him because he was in the same cattle car with you, that he lives with his own
wife, that he is happy with his daughter. Now I know that if Kejzman
knew his later fate, he would not have jumped out; he would have remained in the wagon. And you, helpless women, you wouldn't have envied him.
You are already in Falenica. The train stands at the station a long time.
From all cars one can hear an animal cry.
"Water, water, water!"
Where is there a person who would at least bring a bottle of water for
the parched lips, even if only for the children who are slowly dying from
thirst and lack of ·air? A few brave boys from the Falenica ghetto bring
under cover of night a few bottles of water. It has to last for eight thousand thirsty people.
Boys, boys, don't be afraid. Nothing will threaten you! Tomorrow at
this time you will be loaded into cattle cars, and you will beg for a drop
of water. Who will give it to you?
---------------48
THEAKTION
The train goes farther. It is already in Warsaw. The last time you were
in Warsaw was in January 1940. You traveled to the bank to pay off the
old debt on the movie house. Did you expect that you would visit the city
again under such conditions?
Alusko, Alusko, are you still alive? Have you not yet suffocated? Anka,
do you still have a little water? And maybe Aluska is sipping* your
tears?
I want to believe that the tran~port of the Jews of Otwock arrived at
Treblinka right away, the next day, on Thursday. Some say that the transport from Falenica, which came on Friday, was exterminated before the
Otwock transport. I remember that when someone told me that, I attacked him with my fists. What right did he have to tell me that? Am I to
be told, by my friend, in addition to all that has happened, that my wife
agonized forty-eight more hours in that cursed cattle car?
I close my eyes: The cries for water are ever fainter, people have no
more strength, they lose consciousness. And the children? The children
are probably no longer alive. I see the train is passing the Kos6w station.
Yes, in Kos6w there are fifteen families from Otwock. Do they thank God
that they saved themselves? What do they think now? Are they weeping
over the inhabitants of Otwock?
The train leaves Kos6w and detours to the special railroad siding of
death that leads to Treblinka. Treblinka II is no penal camp. It is the
place that celebrates the triumph of the evil soul of the German race. It is
the cemetery of 3 million Jews, a cemetery where no one will find human bones. Clever Germans are converting them into fertilizer that the
Polish farmer will receive as a bonus for the grain furnished to the
Germans. Yes, yes, Jews-in the opinion of Germans-your work, your
sweat, your creative energy did not fertilize the Polish soil enough. Your
ashes will improve it.
The gate opens, the locomotive chugs, the train stops, the doors of the
cars are opened, the Jews can come out.
Anka, Anka, in what condition did you come out of the cattle car? Were
you holding little Aluska by the hand? Or did you perhaps leave her in
the wagon together with other corpses as well as human excrement? But
maybe Aluska was still breathing. Will anyone ever answer that question
for me?
*The Polish word spija does not have a good English equivalent. Its heartbreaking meaning
is that of a butterfly sipping nectar.
THEAKTION
49
• KARCZEW
The rail route from Warsaw to the Treblinka extermination camp
The people are coming out of the wagons. They fill their lungs full of
air, forgetting that they have come to a place of execution. They are
happy with the outdoors, with the beautiful August day, and maybe-who knows-maybe they have hope. The Germans stand around them,
well fed, in uniforms, helmets, and silvery shields on their chests, machine guns in their hands. These are gods. You must obey them!
A senior officer comes out and speaks to the crowd. What does he say?
What information does he convey?
"People, don't be afraid; nothing bad will happen to you. You will go to
the east, and you will work. Now, because you have lice, you will take
baths. Later you will get food, and tomorrow you will travel on. Let the
women and children go to one side; they will bathe first. Let each one remove her clothes, put them neatly to the side so that she will be able to
find them. Shoes have to be tied in pairs. There are towels. Get ready
quickly because time is urgent."m
The women separate themselves from their husbands, fathers, brothers. They must strip themselves before the crowd. Are they ashamed?
Does it no longer matter to them? They put together their clothes-but
oh God-from where come such heaps of clothes? Are these the clothes
of other Jews? If so, how did these Jews go on to work? Aha, they probably gave them clothes made of paper.
50
THE AKTION
The crowd of naked, silent women, mostly with children in hand,
moves forward to a huge building, where they are supposed to bathe. On
the building is printed with large letters 'AfLE JUDEN BADEN SIGH
UND FARREN NACH OST."na
Silently, old women with flabby breasts, young, tall women, slender
like poplars, the rays of the sun reflecting on their bodies, enter. The sun
sets in blood red color and with it, hope.119
Anko, Anko, let your beautiful eyes gaze for the last time at the heaven,
at the sunset. Send me your last greeting-a benediction or a curse. The
sun will relay your gaze to me.
All the women have entered the building, the doors close automatically, from the interior is heard an enormous cry-it is all over. The door
is opened; people's bodies are thrown out. The building is readied to receive new people so that they may "bathe."
Men, what are you doing during that time? What does Abram
Willendorf do when he sees his wife go into that building? Do you know
that you will never see her again and that shortly you too will perish?
Men perish in the same way. A portion of the strongest and the healthiest is taken to Treblinka I, and after two months' work under inhuman
conditions where they will be squeezed out like lemons, useless, they
too are exterminated. After all, there is no shortage of fresh people. Are
not fresh transports arriving each day? They work with the clothes, separate them, load into wagons; part of them work with the corpses. It
doesn't matter what they do. Sooner or later they will also be killed.*
Evening comes.
What has happened suddenly to the Germans, these who are afraid of
God? The guards fall to the ground; they hide themselves in air raid shelters. Bolshevik planes fly over Treblinka.120
•Perechodnik's account of the killings at Treblinka corresponds in the main to other con·
temporaneous reports. He did not know about the use of gas. Other writers mentioned
electrical current and steam. The Warsaw ghetto poet Wladyslaw Szlengel in his poem
"Mala Stacja Treblinkl" (Lltde Station Treblinka) concludes in the last verse: "There hangs
from times past I (An ad, in any case) I The worn sign that says: I Here you cook with gas"
(translation by R Fox) (\'\ltadystaw Szlengel, Co Czytalem Umarlego {Warsaw: State
Publishing House, 1979), pp. 74-75). Cf. The Black Book of the Polish Jewry (New York:
" American Federation for Polish Jews, 1943); "L'Extermination des Juifs Polonais" (1943),
memoir in the Hoover Institution Archives; and Z. Klukowski, "Niedola i zagtada i.ydow w
Szczebrzeszynie" (Misery and Extermination of Jews in Szczebrzeszyn) (1942) BuL Z!H,
nos. 19-20 n.d. These contemporaneous accounts assumed that electrical current was
used. See Israel Guttman, Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1994), pp. 141 ff.
THE AKTION
51
Well, then, brave Jews, take advantage of the time! Run, Konigsberg!
Run, Rybak! Now or never.
Where is Konigsberg? Where is Rybak? You ran away from Treblinka in
order to tell the world untrue things about Greater Germany! You will be
preaching Greuelpropaganda?12 1 No, Germans don't worry about escapees. They will come with a transport of Jews from another town.
Where is Konigsberg? Are you still alive? Did he return to Treblinka?
Anka, Aluska, Rachel, and you sisters and brothers of mine, how I
would like to say from the depths of my afflicted heart the prayer El Mole
Rachamim•22 for the repose of your souls. May God in the Highest grant
your souls a deserving rest. We the sons, brothers, husbands of yours still
living, we shall avenge you with blood. Amen.
Ma femme bien aimee Annie, tu seras vengee! Ma petite jille Athalie, tu
seras vengee! Les cendres de trois millions hommes, femmes, en/ants
brules a Treblinka, vous serez vengesf123